With Folded RAM

[Cray]

The October/November 2015 Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine has a very short story, "With Folded RAM," by Brooks Peck.

This is the amusing story of the awakening of a friendly hyper-intelligent AI, the creators who want to stop it, and the rebels who want to free it. While the AI doesn't get as far as deducing the existence of rice pudding and income taxes in the brief period covered by the story, it does invent a few ways to end a war, cure all of human society's ills, and make humans immortal.

The ending, which involves freshly baked brownies for everyone on the space station, could be taken as a parody of every "monstrous AI awakening" film and novel.

Alas, I'm not understanding the title, which I assume is a play on some other title or literary reference.

[Rynn]

Sounds interesting, I like the fact that it was hyper-intelligent in one area but not others.

The title seems like a play on With Folded Hands, an old short story about how technology made with good intentions could have disastrous effects in the long run. The story involves benevolent robots created that are programed to serve and protect humans. Unfortunately in pursuit of this goal they effectively replace all human activity and control human behaviour (up to editing memories) to keep them safe and happy.

[stevebowers]

The problem outlined in Jack Williamson's story With Folded Hands is one of the main themes of Orion's Arm; if competent, hyper-efficient automation and AI can do everything humans can do, then what is the role of humanity? We have tried to answer this in a number of different ways, and hopefully we have suggested at least some reasonable ideas. Whether we can avoid the fate of Williamson's humans in real life is another matter.

[Cray]

The title seems like a play on With Folded Hands, an old short story about how technology made with good intentions could have disastrous effects in the long run.

That is definitely it. Thank you.

I think I saw the movie and it starred Will Smith.

[Rynn]

The idea of intelligent machines that follow their instructions in unintended ways is a very interested one. I imagine that this sort of parameterisation problem could be a part of the early setting difficulties. Three laws aren't enough, you'd need to meticulously work in a complex ethical/behaviour regulation system to prevent undesirable consequences, at the same time being free enough for the intelligent machine to do its work.

[JohnnyYesterday]

RAM is an anagram of arm, and genies are generally depicted as folding their arms when they grant a wish, so it might be a play on this, too.